Friday, January 21, 2011

Today is the 11th day of the 82nd regular session of the Texas Legislature. Both the House and Senate will reconvene on Monday at 1:30 pm. The Senate is expected to begin what is certain to be an impassioned debate on voter suppression legislation. The House may finally adopt rules.

Senate committee assignments are also expected which means bills should start being referred to committee. Of particular interest is SB 245 by Sen. Wendy Davis (D-Fort Worth) which proposes comprehensive and inclusive anti-bullying measures. We'll be watching that carefully and will let you know as soon as it's referred to committee.

Today is Friday, which means that most of the representatives and senators are back in their district offices in your cities and neighborhoods. Fridays are great days to call your local office and ask for support from the people elected to represent you. This is particularly important if you know that your elected officials are not supportive of the queer community.

To find the phone number for your representative and senator's district offices go HERE. Put in your address and press enter, then scroll down the page until you see the listing for state senator and state representative and find the phone numbers for their district office. Now put those numbers in your phone's address book so you don't have to keep looking them up!

For a suggested script for your phone call read Legislative Queery's post from Day 4.You can call about any topic that's important to you. For lists of bills that have been filed this session check out the tabs at the top of this page.

I suggest calling your representative about HB 604 by Farrar, which would repeal the state's unconstitutional ban on "Homosexual Conduct". Ask them to "co-author HB 604". Equality Texas has an excellent fact sheet on the bill HERE.

Sen. Davis has been unabashed in her support for anti-bullying legislation. I want to thank her by reiterating my suggestion from last week to call your senator and ask them to "co-author SB 245". The Equality Texas fact sheet is HERE.